Given this contentious issue, here are a few tips to help guide content
away from being promotional while keeping your clients happy.

Place content about an offering before its public release.

The best way to promote your client’s business is to write offer insights
about an industry development that hasn’t been released yet.

If a report isn’t in the market yet, the piece talking it up won’t be
flagged as promotional. For example, if you are a marketer who is about to
release an artificial intelligence product, you have until that press
release goes out to write about AI.

Therefore, while you’re planning the product’s roll out, slate some
contributed content pieces to be drafted and placed ahead of the big
release date. By the time the product comes out, some of your messaging
will already be out there—under your name.

The clicks and shares keep editors happy, and of course, readers will check
out who the person making this stance is which will lead them back to your
client’s website to learn about what they offer.

Get some third-party validation.

If the executive team is insistent on having promotional content in a
byline, suggest that a client or partner author a piece talking about your
client. It can’t completely promotional, but it can and should discuss the
benefits of using the services the client offers.

Most importantly, it can describe how your client positively affected their
business. They could share a list of their favorite tools which could
include your client’s product, or offer a case study for how your client
revolutionized their business model.

Promotional content only gets accepted one time out of hundreds regardless
of the publication editors work for. Thought leadership pieces are places
to talk about the expertise you have in your industry. If what you are
saying is smart, it will drive people to check out your company or client.